The 10th track in our project is "Near To You" from Damn Yankees. Music by Richard Adler and Lyrics by Jerry Ross.

If you can't blame "Yesterday I Loved You" for this project, then you can certainly blame "Near To You". In 2014 I played Linville (and was the 'Heart' tenor) in Damn Yankees at the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse. I will admit, bad Musical Theatre student that I was, I hadn't really known the show all that well going into the production. I fell in love with the show, but specifically, I fell in love with the song "Near To You" which is sung in Act 2 by Young/Old Joe and his wife, Meg. It is a stunning trio, made only better by the fact that I was listening to incomparable performers (Leslie Becker​, Bill Nolte​, and Aaron Young​) singing it. It literally does not get better than that. When I would listen to it, though, I would always think "how cool would it be if this was covered by the band 'Muse'?"

I then realized I now had two tracks, and I should probably just figure out a few more and make a project.

I was explaining this project to Marcus Thorne Bagalà​ who I knew I wanted involved however I could, and he immediately called shotgun on arranging this track. Which was fine by me, dude's a genius.

I started contacting my dream team for singing on this track. First I called Zoe Friedman​ who I had crossed over with at The Fireside, and I knew fronted two rock bands (Thrilldriver​, and VIPER​, check 'em out, they kick serious ass). I explained to her what we were doing, and the song I wanted her to sing on, and it didn't take long for me to convince her. Especially when I explained what style we were going to be performing in.

Next up I called Creighton Fraker​, who I worked with at The Little Beet Table. Creighton, as some of you may know, had an awesome turn on Season 11 of American Idol, making it pretty damn far, and impressing the hell out of a lot of people. I watched his videos after meeting him, which happened to coincide with the planning of this project. I immediately knew he would be a rock star on this track. He fronts a band called Push Phonic​ who are really great, give 'em a listen, they perform live here in the city all the time, and they're great. Creighton, I think, was initially skeptical with the initial idea when I explained it (because let's be real, the concept for this project is kind of weird, and this track is no exception) but when I sent him the first demo Marcus put together, I think he was sold. Damn am I glad he said yes!

Last up was my secret weapon. Steven Moore​ and I have been friends since Ithaca, and he's been my go-to "hey I'm doing a thing and need an awesome person" guy for years. On this track, however, I knew Steve has this amazing capacity for rock in various styles, so if I said "we're doing a track like Muse", Steve would immediately fall right into the style so easily. He said yes almost immediately, and my dream team had fallen into place.

We had these three different singers from vastly different backgrounds with vastly different sounds, and both Marcus and I knew that we didn't know exactly how to sculpt this track. So a call was put out to my go-to music director, Andy Collopy​ (another certifiable genius) who I asked to come in and really help us figure out these vocals. He sat with us and in one rehearsal helped shape everything we were going to be doing. Then we were off to the races.

On the day of recording at Degraw Sound, first we recorded drums for a few tracks, starring mr. Aaron Drescher​. Then we got to vocals, and Harper James​ was on the mixing, and Marcus, Andy, and I hung in the sound booth as one at a time, each singer went in and tracked their stuff.

Holy Crap.

You know when you're listening to someone be so f-ing talented that you don't know what to do with it? That's where we were at. We just started throwing things at them. "Hey Creighton, can you sing this up an octave?" "Hey Steve, what happens if you rock scream, here?" "Hey Zoe, how high can you sing? Sing higher..." Every single time they came through and we built this incredible collection of choices to work with. Lastly, at the very end, Steve says to me "is there like...anything else you want?" That's when we captured the "Lady Larken" scream for Hannah Richter​'s EDM track ("Yesterday I Loved You").

When we sat back

This one was the most fully fleshed out in my head, heading into this process, and the track ended up so much more than I ever could have even hoped for. It's such a kickass track, and I just love jamming to it. Everything about it makes me so happy and it's the perfect finale to the original 10 tracks of this album. At the end of the revival version of the song, there's this cool crazy harmony thing, that Marcus insisted on keeping in the track. I FREAKING LOVE IT. It makes for such a cool switchover and really wraps the album on a funky, fantastic note.

This track is my "jam" track on the album, it's definitely my new "walking through time square to an awesome beat" track. Also if you're wondering about the band name? We semi (read not really) based this track on "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse. Marcus' nickname in college (and to this day) was/is "Moose". So we went with "The Nights of Müse" figuring it connected all of those dots in a pretty fun way.

The 8th track on our project is "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" from "Pal Joey". Music by Richard Rodgers and Lyrics by Lorenz Hart.

Grant is one of the first people I asked to be involved in this project. His groups, Summer Underground and Private Victories are played all the time in my headphones, and I knew that Grant would bring something completely fresh and different to the table. So all I really said to him was, "here's a couple songs, do any speak to you?" Bewitched was the choice.

After Grant's first draft came back, and we really started honing it in, Grant's insane musical talent and ingenuity really really showed through. How many people take the thought "could it have more of a groove through percussion?" and come back with "hey I recorded ice in a glass, the opening of a ginger ale, an empty bottle being lightly tapped, and a soundscape of the spring outside my front door and turned it into some light percussion"? Not only that, but it's freaking perfect. I went into that listening so confused as to what that would sound like, and came out going, "yeah...that's it!"
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I can't get enough of the final like 30 seconds of this song. They are just utterly stunning. Grant's vocals are beyond perfect. And if you haven't listened to the song yet, I highly recommend you take a couple of minutes and indulge in it.

The 7th track on our project is "Yesterday I Loved You" from "Once Upon a Mattress". Music by Mary Rodgers and Lyrics by Marshall Barer.

You can blame Mary Rodgers (or I guess, Ed Flesch at The Fireside) for this entire project. So if you hate everything about it, you know, there's where you should direct your ire. In the fall of 2013 I was playing The Minstrel in Once Upon a Mattress at The Fireside, and every night, David Sajewich and Jessica Jaros would (beautifully) sing this loving track to each other. And every night during the little section marked "freely" on "I openly confess" where the song generally goes halftime, myself and other castmates would pretend like it was a dubstep breakdown. So this track really was the inception of the entire project.

Fast forward to the actual planning of these tracks, and I reached out to Hannah Richter as my closest friend in NYC connected into the EDM world. At the time, however, I thought she could connect me with an EDM artist. So that conversation went sort of like this, "Hey Hannah, I'm doing this project reimagining classic showtunes into new styles, and I want to do "Yesterday I Loved You" from Once Upon a Mattress as an EDM track. Can you connect me with a good local EDM artist?" "Well, yeah...I guess...but, you know I do EDM, right?" A fact I was wholly unaware of. And so Hannah immediately was brought in to the fold.

A few weeks later, on a thursday in February, Marcus Thorne Bagalà and I have just recorded the Common Jack version of "On the Street Where You Live" and we reset our brains to get ready to record some EDM with Hannah (that was a crazy day of music). Hannah shows up, with a bunch of great ideas and various EDM pieces built and goes, "I like all of these ideas individually right now, and none of them when put together". So Marcus, Hannah, and I lock ourselves in Marcus' apartment and start making some EDM magic out of all of these ideas. Over the course of about 7 hours (and lots of caffeine), we built this awesome, gritty version of the song with, what I think, is a super rockin' break.

This track sort of ended up becoming one I sang on by accident, in that we forgot to really plan for a male vocalist. Like 12 hours before we recorded I asked Hannah who she was bringing (thinking she was organizing that) and she responded wondering who I had set up (thinking I was organizing that). Having never sung anything like this before, it was a fun trip to really wail on some notes that are certainly higher than I'm used to full voicing with no vibrato. And Hannah, is a full blown professional and she knocked her vocals out of the park in like 1 or 2 takes.

This one probably took the most or second most mixing time because of how intricate each sound is. It was important that every sound be heard, without it just screaming at you the whole time. I can't begin to describe how brilliant Marcus' work as a mixer is on this track (though I'm sure you can hear). We sat for hours with me asking him to try things, and him telling me why I was an idiot, then him doing things that were literally magic and it getting better, every single time. This is also one of the few tracks that we legitimately added a ton to after the initial recordings. So many of these sounds were layered in later to help enhance the arrangement.

This might be the "strangest" track in the project. It's certainly the most out there, but it's also the one that has gotten the best response from the most amount of people. I think lots of people in Musical Theatre listen to EDM and feel like the two are so separate that they have to keep those lives completely sheltered from each other, so I'm glad that we were able to bridge that gap for some.

Shoutout to Steven Moore for the "Lady Larken" scream in the second verse. Steve sings on "Near To You" which is the 10th track on the project, but after finishing his vocals he goes "is there anything else you need?" and we knew we needed this scream, nor did we know where we were going to get it. So I simply asked Steve to scream those four syllables in rhythm. After the first take I said "can you do it like you're utterly terrified?" and what was produced is so very perfect, it went directly into the track :P

Thorn3z and Pinup (ft. Ned Donovan and Hannah Richter) - "Yesterday I Loved You”
From the musical "Once Upon a Mattress"
Music by Mary Rodgers
Lyrics by Marshall Barer
Arrangement by Marcus Thorne Bagalá and Hannah Richter

Recorded at Muse Light Music
Produced and Mixed by Marcus Thorne Bagalá (marcusbagala.com)
Executive Producer - Ned Donovan
Mastering by Steven “SolidGold” Goldman at Four Legs Records (fourlegsrecords.com)

The sixth track of our project is "My Name" from "Oliver!", Music and Lyrics by Lionel Bart.

Most of the creation of this project went like this: "Hey ____, I want you to work on this project, doing what you do best. I don't know what song yet, let's figure this out."

My conversation with Will Boyajian went like this, "Hey Will, you're really good at lots of things, I want you to perform on this project that I'm putting together. Musical Theatre tunes from 1970 or earlier rewritten for contemporary radio. I know you like doing things like this, do you have any ide--" "Can I do "My Name" from Oliver! as Johnny Cash?" "...yes. Yes you can."

This was the first track we laid down for the album. Will came over to Marcus' and we tracked him playing everything, and we talked through how the arrangement should play, how long it should be, all that sort of thing. This track really was the one and done of our project. Will recorded every bit of it in about 2 hours, and we barely edited later. In fact we left this one to be one of the final tracks we mixed because we knew it was all set and there was other stuff to work on.

Fun fact, Will is also the vocalist on "Give My Regards to Broadway" the first track on the album. Dude's got some range. Only a couple people have put that together.

Track #5 of our project is "There is Nothing Like a Dame" from "South Pacific". Music by Richard Rodgers and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.

I was in an a'cappella group the summer after my senior year in high school down in Massachusetts with Mr. Harry Nichols. Harry was already a student at Ithaca College, where I was about to start, and he, Alex Bonnin, and myself lived in Dave Grossman's basement for a week singing a'cappella tunes. What I came to realize really quickly was that Harry's voice is unlike any other. His signature tune in our group that summer was "Grace Kelly" by Mika. Yep, his voice is unreal.

A couple of years later Harry released an album called "Hangover Sundays" that I really dug, and every time Harry released a new tune under various band monikers, I always found myself jamming to it. But Harry and I had originally bonded over our love of like late '90s, early 00's punk pop music. So before I knew what song I wanted him to arrange, I reached out about him working on the album. I gave him a list of like, 10 songs that I thought might work well. He snagged Dame lighting fast.

A couple weeks later I got a really cryptic message from him. It went something like this, "hey man, I know you said you wanted something poppy and like, All American Rejects-y, but I totally found myself in a different direction. What I have is like, if Sum 41 and Blink 182 had a baby with The Offspring." I was so okay with this direction, and that was where we started stylistically working on this track. Every incarnation after that only got more and more awesome. I would say "what if you tried this" or Harry would go "wait I have an idea, give me an hour" and it would just keep getting better.

This is yet another track we dragged Aaron Drescher in on (he's pretty good, isn't he?!) because we knew something was missing, and it really was a live drum track. There's only so much you can do with a computer drum kit, and adding that extra layer of energy really pushed the track up and over to the next level.

Dame was our first fully mixed track we collected for project (shoutout to Steven Goldman at Four Legs Records for Mixing this one [and mastering the entire album!]). There was a period of time where my head was exploding and I had no idea how this was all going to come together. Harry sending me the final mix of this track immediately put that fear to rest. It was all smiles from then on out.

Track #4 of our project is "I Enjoy Being a Girl" from "Flower Drum Song". Music by Richard Rodgers and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.

Have you all ever heard Megan Dorn sing? If you haven't listened to our track, or found a way to hear her in the past, that is a damn travesty. This girl can sing like few people I have ever heard. This past winter I was fortunate enough to take part in Marcus and Megan's christmas album, where she sang a rendition of "Merry Christmas, Baby" that will blow your mind. (You can find that here) So I knew I wanted her to showcase her stuff on a pop track for us.

This was one of the final tracks we completed because it required more research (at least on my part) as this isn't a style of music I'm generally versed in. Megan and Marcus were exceedingly patient with me as I asked umpteen bajillion questions that usually made no sense and made suggestions of a similar kind. The difficulty of this track really came down in the arrangement, however. The song is written in a verse/refrain style, but Pop is generally defined by a catchy chorus. Well, we didn't really want to write original lyrics and music over Rodgers and Hammerstein (those guys were pretty good, you know?). Marcus had the brilliant idea to use "girl" in a sort of contemporary pop "glitch" idea. It allowed us to have a fun, jammable chorus without writing new words for monsieur Hammerstein, and allowed us to create a fully fleshed pop track.
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Marcus built every bit of the track (except drums, shoutout to Aaron Drescher, drummer for this album!) and then Megan killed it (of course). The rest, as they say, is history. Give it a listen!

The third track in our project is "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady, as performed by Common Jack
This has long been one of my favorite songs ever written, I just love everything about it from start to finish. I knew, too, that I wanted John Gardner to arrange/perform a track for this project. Fresh off the "Once" national tour, John's debut album as Common Jack, "Bowl, Holland" came out last winter and has been on constant repeat in my ears ever since. If you haven't, I highly recommend you go check it out. Like now...I'll wait.
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Common Jack - Bowl, Holland - iTunes link: https://itun.es/us/kAB8-
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ANYWAYS so I put together a list of songs I thought would sound cool in the style most present on John's album. There was some overlap in similar lists I gave other artists for other styles. I was secretly hoping John would pick "On the Street" but I didn't want to "assign" it. Well John's first selection was chosen by someone else on the album (I won't say which one), and so he went "well then I want "On The Street Where You Live" now, so that no one else can take it." I did a little happy dance.

Fast forward about a month, and John and I arrived bright and early for a recording session at Marcus' studio (Muse Light Music). We started going through the track (which was glorious) and John had brought his Guitar, a Mandolin, and a Cavaquinho (which I learned to say and spell for this album, having never heard of one before) but hadn't fully figured out what the full arrangement was. So we started to play. This is when we discovered (or John and I discovered, Marcus knew and recommended) that he stand in a little entranceway area to Marcus' bedroom in one direction, or bathroom in the other. When you shut the doors, it created a REALLY cool acoustic experience which we used for the doubled vocals.

At the end something was still missing, so John pulled out first the mandolin, but because I'm a curious little bugger I was like "I know what a mandolin is, what in god's name is that little baby guitar thing?" So John busted out the Cavaquinho and strummed a couple chords, and we forgot about ever tracking the Mandolin. Immediately John was required to play that, and to me, it makes ALL the difference on the track.

Side note: maybe my favorite moment/memory while recording for this entire project came when John and I were wandering around Marcus' living room, making Marcus play back the same 20 seconds of song over and over again, while John and I tried to figure out the perfect lower harmony for the repeated "and oh the towering feeling" section. It took far too long, and required much arguing and trying things that really, really did not work, but we got there. I love the way this track turned out and especially what it does for the project as a whole.

Second side note: One of my favorite theatrical experiences to date was being a member of the Cockney Quartet in "My Fair Lady" at the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse (with Travis Kent from Track #2, Getting Married Today!) directed by Jen Waldman and featuring the exquisite Brandon Davidson playing Freddy. He was simply marvelous singing this song every night.

Our second track is "Getting Married Today" from Stephen Sondheim's "Company".

This one's our Broadway track, with an arrangement by Scott Wasserman (Ableton Programmer for "Hamilton"), Lead Vocals by Okieriete Onaodowan (Hercules Mulligan/James Madison in "Hamilton"), and the hook is sung by Travis Kent (Ensemble in "Disaster")!

This was probably the most obvious updated arrangement, with the original being a spoken patter song. Scott and I met up and I pitched him the project, and it was mostly a shot in the dark (Scott's an insanely busy person, currently working on "Dear Evan Hansen"), and was happily surprised to find that he was free right in the slot that we were doing most of the work on this! We immediately got to work on the arrangement, and Scott came back with this awesome club feel that became the basis for the track.

Travis was one of the first people asked to perform on this album. He and I worked together in 2012 doing "My Fair Lady" at the Merry-Go-Round, and he keeps popping up in incredible web projects. His "Sherlock: Season 3: The Musical" is hilarious (with Travis playing the eponymous detective), and he is also the lead in the brilliant "Burning Man: The Musical". Check out both, like yesterday. So he came immediately to mind. I wasn't sure on the rap, however, I'd talked to a couple people that I knew, but nothing was feeling right, and then Scott mentioned offhandedly that Oak might be interested and my brain melted. Sure enough, he enthusiastically signed on the next day and I knew we had a club hit on our hands.

Scott designed the beats at home, but we recorded vocals and mixed the track at Degraw Sound in Brooklyn under the brilliant thumb of Harper James. One day in February, Travis and Oak came in and laid down some brilliance. Over the next couple weeks Scott, Harper, and I met up to mix it down, and from a technical standpoint, this one was one of the more complicated mixes in the project. There are tons of effects, so many different sounds and styles permeating throughout the piece, and it flies at a lightning pace. Lots of time was spent in a room with the three of us working to perfect a sound, or make sure certain sounds were heard, and carefully adjusting the minute details of the piece.

Our first track in our project, is "Give My Regards to Broadway" by George M. Cohan. From the musical "Little Johnny Jones".

This song was chosen because we wanted something that succinctly summed up our project and worked as a title. We also knew we wanted Will Boyajian to sing/arrange some Ska for us. We went through a couple of song options, but this one won out definitely.

In February Will came to Marcus' studio and we laid down some tracks. Over the next couple weeks we recorded tracks for the rest of the instruments with such rockin' musicians as Aaron Drescher, Will Melones, Josh Plotner, and Dan Wendelken. Then, however, we had to come up with a name for our merry band. Many options were thrown out there, but we wanted a good Ska name that also was a solid Musical Theatre reference. Thus, "George 'n the Skankee Doodle Dandies" were born! I guess that makes Will, George?

As you all know, the last few months have been kind of rough for me. It's been 2 and a half months since my father died, however as my father always taught me, I've kept pushing forward and trying to push upward. I've been hinting for the last 2 months that I have a cool project coming up, and I'm about 3 days from telling you exactly what that is.

In a truncated nutshell, however, I've been working on a passion project of 10 recordings. They've been percolating in my head for a couple of years, and I really buckled down on getting them arranged and recorded starting last October. In February, when we made the decision to allow my father to pass away comfortably, I decided to add an 11th track to that list.

This is the 11th track. It's an arrangement of "New Words" by Maury Yeston, from the musical "In the Beginning". This absolutely beautiful arrangement was made for me by my good friend Chris LaRosa whose work is unparalleled. We recorded it on the 27th of February, 3 and a half weeks after my father passed away, at Degraw Sound in Brooklyn. Harper James engineered the track and mixed it so beautifully.

Thanks to Garrett Kafchinski and Abner James for shooting such wonderful footage, and for helping me through this editing process.

And thanks to all of you guys, friends and family alike, without whom I would be lost in 2016. You guys keep my head up, you keep my spirits high, and you keep me lifted even at my lowest. You will never know how much you mean to me, and how much you have given me in the last 2 and a half months.

Dad, I love you, I miss you, thank you for teaching me to name the stars.​~ Ned